My next destination appeared like a well-timed pardon from the sobering reality awaiting me in Willows Edge. Being one who was partial to the woods, especially expanses indigenous to my homeland, I sensed my torment dissipating beneath the trees gathered on all sides of the terrain I now observed. For several miles I hiked between the autumnal cloaked sycamores, elms, and oaks, occasionally dallying to admire this timberland and all of its deciduous offerings. Before long, sections within this drowsy woodland opened to reveal a glen shrouded with a tapestry of colors that might’ve rivaled a canvass painted en plein air by Monet. Swallows and pigeons flitted alternately between the trees’ camouflage, and squirrels chattered greedily in a nearby grove laden with acorns. Adding to this splendor, moistened loam perfumed the air and blended earthily with the decaying leaves scratching along the forest’s floor.
Of course, as it must be with all avenues sculpted from the pureness of Mother Nature’s ingenuity, this hollow eventually revealed the occupation of those with different blueprints. It was upon a woody concourse that I documented my first glimpse of a trespass on this vista. The infringement, however trivial, reminded me that I had not traveled here to simply absorb this landscape’s inborn comforts. I noticed a crudely formed cottage residing conspicuously beside a brook. A cursory inspection of its log-hewn exterior proved that it was barely inhabitable, and constructed in the fashion of most Dutch barns in the 18th century. One look at a lopsided belfry positioned on the cabin’s roof verified its purpose as a schoolhouse.
The dwelling’s interior was presently unoccupied, but I imagined that the benches hadn’t been absent of pupils for too long of a spell. I eventually followed the flow of land to the schoolhouse’s opposite side, where a single white birch tree draped crookedly over a creek. Many of this tree’s lower branches had been intentionally snapped off, apparently used as switches to enforce the corporal discipline of this era. The other attractant revealed itself on a bed of clover that unfurled like a lime-colored quilt along the brook’s embankment. A rather peculiar looking fellow had adopted a cozy spot to tarry on this perennial patch of weeds. He had a noticeably gangly frame that was accentuated by the manner in which he stretched out supinely on the knoll.
Although I doubt anyone would’ve been intimidated by his emaciated physique, I approached him as warily as if he had a bewitching power. By even the kindest illustrations, I couldn’t describe him as a comely man. His ears bowed out from a narrow head in such a way that it was achievable to see into his canals while staring at him straight on. And his hooked nose, which reminded me of a toucan’s beak, looked equally unbalanced against his otherwise small face. The exposed skin on his hands struck me as colorless as the cumulus clouds drifting in the skyline, and I wondered if he suffered from acute malnutrition. Yet, if he was indeed as sickly and frail as I surmised, he was much too engrossed in reading a book to lend any serious attention to potential interlopers.
The knickers and stockings he wore collapsed in billowy folds over his slender stature. Based on the cut of his long coat and ruffled shirt I dated this period at around the time of the American Revolution. In truth, the man hadn’t any more girth to his torso than a beanpole, yet he seemed naturally at ease in the routine of eating. Since I first set eyes upon him, he had reached continuously into a burlap pouch to draw forth a hazelnut or grape. He popped this food into his misshapen mouth with an almost fiendish delight. The only business that required more of his attention was the aforementioned book propped up in front of his face.
Because it was now nearly twilight, I assumed this fellow had stationed himself on this bluff before an orange haze lowered upon the environs. I furthermore concluded that only a book of captivating merit could have compelled a man to read until he strained to decipher the ink on its pages. The ravenous manner in which he indulged in the text was no less frenzied than a fox raiding a chicken coop. His nose nearly scraped against the book’s binding as he flipped through its onionskin pages. After angling a few paces closer to his position, I distinguished the volume’s title for myself. Based on the elevated concentration that he loaned to Cotton Mather’s “History of New England Witchcraft”, I presumed he was an authority on its contents.
I permitted another twenty seconds to elapse before stepping out of the birch tree’s fading shadow. At last, when he could no longer disregard my emergence, the lean fellow lowered the book against his chest and glanced in my direction. His mossy eyes studied me as if I had the same nefarious intent as the accursed Puritans in his book. His orbs bulged from recessed sockets with a mixture of cowardice and curiosity. Of course, as was my custom, I greeted him with an amicable expression.
“Hello, sir,” I called to him as if we had a previously arranged appointment. My salutation immediately caused him to extend his wiry neck like an ostrich peeping over an obstruction, yet there was nothing in the space between us to spur such a reaction. He then glanced behind himself to inspect the brook’s flow of murmuring water. Perhaps he wondered if I had skipped across the shallow creek unnoticed. Soon after verifying my existence as nothing more off-putting than an ordinary spectator, he acted less attentive to whatever I had come to convey.
“The school lesson is finished for today,” he assured me. “If you’re searching for an imp, you won’t find one here at this hour.”
This man’s proximity to the schoolhouse seemed logical now. Apparently, he was the headmaster of the dilapidated structure, which appeared no more secure than a deserted shanty. It was at this instance that I determined the character’s identity. For reasons yet undisclosed to me, I had intersected paths with none other than the most superstitious pedagogue in Tarry Town, which was a dreamily sequestered region more commonly referred to as Sleepy Hollow.
“You must be Ichabod Crane,” I thought aloud.
“Ay,” the long-limbed schoolmaster confirmed. “On days where there’s scant trouble to be found, that is the name I’ll respond to most commonly.”
“Well, I bring nothing in the form of trouble,” I avowed.
“Then greetings,” he returned. He almost resumed the perusal of his selected literature, but when I neglected to shuffle along the worn trail, he questioned my dawdling antics. “Do you have something brewing in your thoughts, sir?”
“I don’t mean to keep you from your book, Mr. Crane. I was simply out strolling through this glen when I happened to notice you reclined so peacefully alongside the brook.”
Ichabod smiled devilishly, and judging by the glassy film lacquering his eyeballs I postulated he had more pleasant ruminations to conjure than those theorized by Mather in regard to the Salem Witch Trials. I wondered why a varlet such as Ichabod, who was at times spooked inconsolably by flickering fireflies, had dedicated his imagination to a task of surveying uncanny tales that terrified him more anything else. At the moment, I surmised that my visitation with this teacher from Tappen Zee was inextricably linked to our profession’s commonality. If I sought to ascertain a deeper connotation to our talk, then I needed to inquire for more information.
“Based on the hour,” I proceeded, “it’s a fair guess that you’ve been out here reading for quite some time.”
“It’s a harmless habit of mine when the weather permits,” he replied.
“I can also see that you’ve selected a book that might fill a credulous man’s mind with dread.”
Ichabod gulped as if he swallowed a vine of grapes, while his eyes realigned with his book of witchcraft. What he wanted to say and what finally sputtered from his pursed lips sounded like a contradiction. “I’ve long clung to the wisdom that a man should be knowledgeable in the business he most fears,” he clarified. “In this way, I’ve made fair progress from Mather’s teachings.”
“Maybe it is a smart bargain to tilt a little in the direction of the unknown,” I agreed. “After all, complacency breeds trouble, does it not?”
My words intentionally provoked a trace of distress in the fretful schoolmaster’s expression. He gradually tugged his
body upright as if manipulated by a towline, while snapping the book shut with the urgency of a flytrap.
“Now that you’ve called attention to the matter,” Ichabod declared, “the hour is indeed later than I presumed. If you’ll please pardon me, I have other duties to attend.”
I figured that it would’ve been a premature consolation if I excused Ichabod from my company now. Besides, the likelihood of ever conversing with this man again seemed less probable than confronting a headless specter galloping horseback through this heralded grove. The gawky schoolmaster, however, was intent on following his own schedule. He stood upright like a scarecrow rising from a cornfield, while brushing a few particles of hay and leaves from his britches. Then, after forwarding an obligatory nod from his anvil-shaped chin, he started along a path leading back to a student’s barn that he presently called home.
As if I was Ichabod’s shadow, I kept in step with his spindly legs. He stopped once to observe the foliage alongside a glen that looked as though it was mottled in pumpkin and magenta pastels. He must’ve wondered why I attempted to maintain my pace alongside his gait, for I hadn’t yet clarified any of my intentions.
“I see what this is now,” he mused. “You’ve come to make sport of me. Brom Bones and those rough riders, who dash about the village like daredevils in flight, must’ve sent you here to harass me. I have no use for such ruffians.”
“I don’t have any dealings with those people,” I assured him. “I’m not even from around this area.”
“Ay, then it’s a vagabond spirit that you intend to call yourself?”
“I’m no more or less itinerant than you are. I’m a teacher.”
“Is that so?” he remarked incredulously. “What family has taken you in?”
“None. I’m merely passing through Sleepy Hollow.”
“To what destination, if I may ask?”
“Well, I’m not yet certain of that, Mr. Crane. Right now it seems I’m just following the roads to see where they might deliver me.”
“It sounds like a peculiar pastime,” he observed. “I should advise you that some rather bizarre occurrences have upset the schoolhouse of late. I almost believed that a hex was cast upon the premises, but I’m currently inclined to suspect that a more secular suspect is to blame.”
Now that this bit of information was revealed, I safely predicted that the psalm-singing pedagogue had already acquainted himself with this countryside’s most celebrated coquette. By this hour, most of the townspeople of the somnolent habitat had already witnessed Ichabod’s rapacious appetite, and his equally avid desire to gain favor with Katrina Van Tassel. With a virile spirit of competition wafting in the air with more mischievous intent than a loitering poltergeist, I discovered another link between us.
“When a suitor is in pursuit of the woman you adore,” I declared, “it makes you crave her even more than you ever remembered, does it not?”
Ichabod angled his nose into the air as if trying to inhale the maple trees’ aroma. “You seem to know something of my situation,” he huffed. “I can’t boast that my size and temperament would match Abraham Van Brunt’s brawn, but I’m confident that the dalliance between the fair Katrina and I will be consummated through wit.”
“And you’re certain that Brom Bones hasn’t a trick or two prepared to snatch the plump partridge from her nest before you can roost there?”
“I won’t speak in absolutes on matters of courtship,” said Ichabod, “but if pressed to measure my chances when matched against my rival, I’d say I’m at least a head higher at the end of the day.”
At this point I detected a capricious twist in the schoolmaster’s mouth, which trickled across his face as aslant as the brook’s flow of water from the old bridge to Major Andre’s tulip tree. His bottle green eyes expanded in both sockets, too, and began to scan the forested environs as if a banshee screeched between the trees’ tangled branches. I emphasized with Ichabod’s apprehension because I knew that more than just the conjured spirits of this woodland haunted him.
“It’s not easy winning a woman’s affection,” I stated, “and even when you do, there’s no guarantee that you’ll keep her happy. I think we both know that Katrina craves the attention she gets from you and other fellows in town.”
“Rubbish,” Ichabod snorted. “By design, I’m in a very keen position to win her hand from any would-be suitor, including the boorish Brom Bones. In fact, barring any unforeseen turn of events, I’m confident that Baltus Van Tassel will welcome me to dine at his quarters as often as I make myself available for such occasions.”
“Maybe you should be less aggressive in your approach,” I suggested. Just as I pronounced these words, a disturbance in the thicket caused Ichabod to nearly spring out of his buckled shoes. A sound of a woodpecker’s beak hammering against a hickory tree served as an ill-omened sign for a man who was more unhinged than the schoolhouse’s dilapidated door.
“Did you hear that noise?” he asked, quivering like a windblown spikelet of wheat.
“It’s nothing to be worried about.”
“Why are you so certain? Doesn’t anything frighten you?”
“I suppose we are all scared of something,” I mentioned.
Ichabod straightened in his stance as if suddenly determined to prove to me that his gullible reputation was grossly exaggerated. Yet we both knew that he might’ve very well been the most recognizable coward in all the colonies. Only his irrational pride prevented him from confessing as much to me. He resumed his walk expeditiously along the trail; his elongated feet looked liked spades cutting into the earth. In order to keep pace with the spooked instructor, I increased the speed of my own footsteps. This sprint continued until we reached a covered bridge near The Old Dutch Church. The headstones in a colonial cemetery were visible from our vantage point.
Without any further provocation on my part, Ichabod pivoted sharply toward me and reached anxiously into a pocket in his gray topcoat. He proceeded to forward an often-used ferule as if I was one of his unspoiled charges. He waved the thin rod in front of himself as if he had the ability to punish all the countryside’s evildoers with a single swipe of this cane.
“Sir, if that’s what you truly are, your sojourn with me comes to an end here,” he remarked. “I am well versed with the habits of this wood’s spirits. The Dutch wives have filled my ears regularly with the mayhem they cause.”
At some stage along our walk, Ichabod had envisioned my presence as something more supernatural than ordinary. I wasn’t so sure he was entirely wrong in the context of things, but he had drawn a hasty conclusion about my motivations.
“You needn’t fear me,” I exclaimed.
“Tend to your business, and I’ll service mine,” he replied, while stepping onto the bridge’s rickety framework. “It is well known that once I cross beyond this wooden span, even the Headless Hessian himself couldn’t follow me.”
“Do you really think I’m a ghost after your head, Mr. Crane?”
“I’m obliged to concede nothing of the sort. But since this vicinity has a rumored population of hobgoblins fluttering amuck, I will lean toward my cautionary principles.”
“As you should,” I advised. “After all, no one really knows what lurks between the shadows of any given night in Sleepy Hollow.”
I would’ve hoped that Ichabod Crane recalled my admonition when it mattered most to him, but he had already trampled away and continued on his course into the pages of folklore. Once alone in this slumbered haven, I settled beside the bridge and stared into the Pocantico River’s whispery currents. An intangible stillness existed here amidst this sylvan sanctuary, permitting me to imagine how others had been influenced by the witchery at large. It seemed as if some ancient spell weaved stealthily between the crayon-colored leaves.
In this time of introspection, I recounted my father’s superstitious nature. He was always afraid to take chances, even after chance was all he had left to dream about. Perhaps some of my own stunted o
pinions and choices in life were sketched cerebrally as a child while I perched on my rock beside Lake Endelman. I wondered how many others existed with such latent consternations, some of which would’ve made all the accumulated legends in this ghostly grove conspicuously trite in comparison.
How could any man have felt secure while his mind continually lured him away from confrontations? I knew it was too late to brood over every shortcoming, but I wasn’t yet ready to return to reality. Instead, I opted to drift deeper into the channels of the darkened dreams winnowing through my head.
Chapter 50
1:45 P.M.
The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs Page 50
